"Well, that settles it - if American auditors and comptrollers went into Iraq with no plan for winning the peace, and if we can't hope to bring about a reconciliation of the national accounts, it is time to withdraw."

Abu Ali is a 23-year-old Sunni with a soft middle and a common tale. Identifying himself by only a nickname, which means father of Ali...

[8 paragraphs later]

The details of Abu Ali's story could not be independently verified, but they fit a pattern of bribes and payroll schemes found in nearly every nook of Iraq's government

No, of course, it's Iraq, independent verification would be next to impossible. That's why it was limited to 10 paragraphs in an article, and not, say a byline and a multi-part series.

Well, yeah, being in Iraq is one issue -- not having married a fact-checker at the publication is another, I suppose.

I think this article will strike a note of terror in the hearts of the NYT's remaining readers, residing and voting as they do in such islands of civic purity as New York, Chicago,New Jersey, Washington,D.C, San Francisco, Louisiana, and St. Louis.

Dateline:Washington D.C. (home of the $44 million and counting ripoff of revenues by officers in the property tax department):

The NYT having apparently run through its bag of Iraq (aka Mesopotamia) themes --quagmire, Abu Ghraib, cholera, mass exodus and civil war, is now reporting with shock that there's corruption there.

"Well, that settles it - if American auditors and comptrollers went into Iraq with no plan for winning the peace, and if we can't hope to bring about a reconciliation of the national accounts, it is time to withdraw."

Abu Ali is a 23-year-old Sunni with a soft middle and a common tale. Identifying himself by only a nickname, which means father of Ali...

[8 paragraphs later]

The details of Abu Ali's story could not be independently verified, but they fit a pattern of bribes and payroll schemes found in nearly every nook of Iraq's government

No, of course, it's Iraq, independent verification would be next to impossible. That's why it was limited to 10 paragraphs in an article, and not, say a byline and a multi-part series.

Well, yeah, being in Iraq is one issue -- not having married a fact-checker at the publication is another, I suppose.

I think this article will strike a note of terror in the hearts of the NYT's remaining readers, residing and voting as they do in such islands of civic purity as New York, Chicago,New Jersey, Washington,D.C, San Francisco, Louisiana, and St. Louis.